Jesse Hughes, vocalist and guitarist of Eagles of Death Metal, an American rock band from Palm Desert, California that was formed in 1998, took to social media to display his grievances with the March For Our Lives protest and want for gun control. Hughes posted on a rant on Instagram that included political images and negative comments about the students that survived the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on February 14th and protested in the March For Our Lives on March 24th.
Hughes has survived a mass shooting when a terrorist attack happened during an Eagles of Death Metal concert at the Bataclan in Paris, France. While the Eagles of Death Metal were performing a concert on November 13, 2015 a terrorist attack took place in the theatre. The terrorist took 60-100 concert goers hostage. About 89 concert goers were killed during the attack. According to mxdwn drummer, Julian Dorio, released a statement about the attack on his Instagram. The band was interviewed by VICE where each band member gave their personal account about the event.
In his rant Hughes took a stance that was anti-gun control and called those that protested in the March For Our Lives “vile abusers of the dead” according to Pitchfork. One of the images in Hughes’ Instagram was a Photoshopped picture of student protester Emma González, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, tearing up the Constitution. Under this image Hughes put the caption “Behold……the Awful Face Of Treason…..survivor of Nothing….Lover of Treason…..enjoy your little moment…..it’s about to End…… #stupidity #hatersofliberty #loversofsatan #borntolose #2ndamendment”.
A second image in Hughes’ Instagram included a graphic that equated giving up a gun to end violence to “chopping off [one’s] own dick to end rape.” Hughes also reiterated in his original post that gun control in France did not stop the terrorist attack in France during the Eagles of Death Metal’s concert where about 89 people were killed.
After receiving criticism for his post, on Sunday night Hughes said that he would create a separate Instagram account to post his political thoughts on.
On December 13th, 2017 Eagles of Death Metal performed with Pixies and the Orwells in Los Angeles, California at the Hollywood Palladium. More information about the event can be found here.